The River will Continue to Flow
by Pitbull15
Summary: Ed, Edd, and Eddy are just three slightly average fifteen year-olds trying to make their way in life. Until Ed does something that sets a whole chain of events into motion...


*Disclaimer: I do not own anything associated with EEnE, and this is only a fanfic, obviously. But I had to get this out of the way, and hopefully I'll only have to do it one time.

**This story takes place in a world where the events in the movie never happened. Of course, criticism (especially constructive) is needed and appreciated.

***I don't own any song lyrics mentioned in this story or anything related to pop culture. Again, hopefully I won't need to do this again.

At the end of a long, hard first day of his new job at the construction site, Edd had almost forgotten to shower due to his extreme tiredness. However, despite his neat-freak nature, that hadn't bothered him one bit as all he wanted to do was crawl into bed and find solace in a dreamless sleep.

At the beginning of the day, when he showed up at 7:00 A.M, he was put straight to work along with a bunch of other workers hauling dry cement. They managed to get that part done that day; but the next day, they had to dig the places in the ground where the foundation for the office building would go and if there was enough time, get the cement ready to pour into the holes. Being physically weak for a male already, it was exhausting work, and this was only the beginning for him. Being only 15 years old, and his parents being at their jobs most of the time, he had to walk 1 mile to catch a bus and ride 20 miles into the neighboring city to get to his job. Obviously, this was only going to be a summer thing, but summer just seemed to get a whole lot longer after he got home. But he needed money, and this was the only available job he could find that was somewhat close to home. There were no jobs left for him in his hometown of Peach Creek.

"Good Lord…" he mumbled, feeling the soreness all over his body. "What on earth was I thinking when I took this job?" He walked over to his bed, and was asleep as he fell on it.

The next day, he was sore getting up out of bed, he wasn't sure he could work another full day. But he didn't have to, luckily. He only had to work 3 days a week. For now, at least. The contractor at the site said that working full time was a definite possibility, partially to Edd's chagrin. However, thirty-five bucks an hour was totally worth it for him. So knowing that, he climbed out of bed to get started with the day.

Just two houses over from Edd's place, however, a very different scene was playing out

His two best friends, Ed and Eddy, were lying sprawled out on the floor in Ed's room. His room was in the basement of the house, and of course, he used that to his advantage. (Which meant partying.) The room reeked of weed, tobacco, and liquor, and there were empty bottles and cigarette butts laying everywhere. Luckily for them, Ed's parents and sister were out of town for the week, and Eddy convinced his parents that he was just "sleeping over".

"Goddammit… Fuck it all…" Eddy grumbled as he woke up to a pounding headache. He had no idea where he was at, until five minutes had passed. Then he remembered everything that had happened last night, despite Eddy wanting to forget everything. He turned around to find his friend lying on the concrete floor, with a half-empty bottle in his hand.

"Ugh, Christ… Ed, wake up!"

Still, his friend didn't stir. He stayed sound asleep.

"Ed, dammit, wake up! We need to get this mess cleaned up before someone walks in on us!"

"Oh, what, you mean like right now?"

Scared out of his wits, Eddy whirled around to find out who it was that interrupted Eddy's monologue, but was relieved to find out it was only Edd standing at the top of the stairs that led down to Ed's bedroom.

"Oh, it's just you, Double D. What is it with ya and sneaking up on people like that?! You just about gave me a fuckin' heart attack!"

Edd surveyed the scene with an exasperated look on his face. "I think what you were on last night will do a good enough job of that on its own." He said, being all too familiar with the smell of smoked pot. "Honestly, what in God's name were you two thinking?! You could've at least locked the door! What if I were one of the Kanker sisters?!"

Eddy shuddered at the very thought of what would've happened if the three sisters had stumbled upon them unconscious like they were just 5 minutes ago. Ever since meeting them three years back, they had been madly in love with them and essentially stalked them whenever they could and covered their faces in kisses when they caught them, much to the boys' chagrin. Although taking their actions into consideration, it was unknown how much of it was love and how much of it was just looking for someone to abuse and torment. And they couldn't press charges against them, because they knew they would have to go to parents before doing that, and their parents would probably just brush it off as "young love."

However, the Kankers weren't there, and he pushed the thought out of his mind quickly.

"Hey, c'mon, Sockhead!" said Eddy, referencing as always to the beanie hat Edd wore everywhere. "Don't get mad because you weren't here; we both invited you!"

"Eddy, I was dead-tired from my new job! I like to relax as much as the next person, but I didn't have any time and it's illegal! If you had a job, you wouldn't have been doing this last night and wouldn't have such an awful hangover!"

"What haven't we done that's illegal in the last three years?"

Edd gave him another exasperated look and threw his hands up in the air.

"Alright, alright," Eddy said as he held his hand up to the location of his headache. "Damn, I'm sorry, ok? It's just that this headache is fucking killing me right now!"

Edd, knowing how easily that could've been prevented, just gave up on the whole thing. Eddy then turns around to find Ed still sound asleep, even through their argument. "Unbelievable…" he said before mustering all the strength he could and shouting into his ear.

"ED! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GET YOUR ASS UP AND HELP ME CLEAN UP THIS MESS!"

The shouting was loud enough to amplify Eddy's headache twofold and to make Edd cringe. After that, Ed finally stirred and opened his eyes. "What…" he slurred. "Where am I?"

"We're in your room, Lumpy, remember?

Ed opened his eyes completely to reveal that they were bloodshot and dilated. "No." he slurred; before falling straight back to his previous state. "Great." said Eddy, headache even worse than before for no good. "Double D, help me carry him upstairs, will ya?"

After they had moved him, they set him on the living room couch. Noting his appearance of being in deep sleep, Edd said, "Ok, I don't think he'll be going anywhere. Now we can clean up the mess downstairs."

While they were cleaning up, Edd couldn't help but think that maybe they could leave all the garbage that was left over from last night. Ed's room was already disgusting, and the garbage actually helped to mask it a little. To go along with that, nobody but Ed and his two best friends went down there. But taking chances never really worked out for the three of them, as demonstrated repeatedly in the past, so he went straight back to work.

After they were done, everything was put into garbage bags, and the room was sprayed with Febreze, Eddy made a strange discovery.

"Hey, Sockhead, come here!" said Eddy. Edd, exasperated by his constant nickname, _(Along with his other nickname, "Double D," which came from the two d's at the end of his name.) _walked over to where Eddy was. "What do you think was in this?" He held up an empty blister pack and handed it to Edd. The pack held eight pills, whatever they might've been.

"I found it where Ed was laying earlier!"

Edd took the blister pack and immediately started to panic. "Oh dear… Eddy, y-you don't remember bringing any… hardcore stuff last night, do you?

"Uh, no I don't think I-"

Eddy was stopped short mid-sentence as his eyes widened in panic. He then turned to look at Edd.

"Okay, Eddy, calm down, this may not be as bad as it looks. We-"

"I hope you're right, Double D, because this looks really bad." Eddy said, fearing for his friend's life.

"Calm down, Eddy! We'll just get Ed to the hospital or—wait, we'll just call 911. They'll take care of this."

"What, are ya fucking nuts?! Then everyone will find out what happened!"

Edd paused for a moment and actually considered that, but ultimately disagreed. "Eddy, Heaven knows what's going through Ed's system right now! It's either that or Ed's life! He could be on the verge of death for all we know!"

Seeing Edd's point, he nodded in agreement. Eddy was selfish a lot of times, but he certainly didn't want one of his best friends gone forever. He, like Edd, was one of the constants in his life, having known them from early childhood. With that, they both went upstairs to the kitchen to get the phone.

Picking up the phone and calling 911 was harder than Edd thought it would be, because once they came and found out what was in Ed's system, they would suffer the consequences for coming into possession of it. But still, Eddy and Edd ultimately valued their friend's life more, and Eddy motioned Edd to call them.

"Hello, 911? Yes, my friend has unwittingly consumed a type of poison and needs to get his stomach pumped!"

The operator replied, "Alright, what did he consume, and what's your address?"

Silence ensued for the next ten seconds.

"Sir, are you still there?"

Edd was snapped out of his trance and regained his composure. "We—don't know what he consumed. All we know is that he consumed something and now he's unconscious and won't wake up!"

"Is he still alive?"

"Yes, he is, but he just won't get up."

"Okay, so if I'll have your address then…"

Edd then gave the operator Ed's home address.

"Okay, help's on the way."

With a sigh of relief, and dread at what could happen to them when they found whatever illegal substance was in Ed's system, he walked into the living room to find an extremely panicked Eddy.

"Double D! He—he went—I don't know he just-!"

"Wait, slow down, Eddy, good Lord! Now what happened?"

"HE'S GONE!"

Edd, who was behind the couch, rushed over to where Eddy was standing and saw that he was indeed gone.

"And I just called 911 to come here! Quick, find him before they get here!"

So they frantically searched every square inch of the house, every nook and cranny, and even went down into Ed's room to check where he was, but it was all to no avail.

"Okay, Double D, NOW can we panic?"

"NO! Nobody's panicking! He's got to be here somewhere! He couldn't have just got up and walked away!" But despite this, Edd knew he was lying to himself. There was simply no other explanation as to why Ed was no longer there. Even the idea of the Kanker sisters kidnapping him at this hour seemed illogical, seeing as how it was Tuesday, and they were probably busy doing all their laundry like they did every Tuesday.

At that moment, they could both hear the distant sirens of the approaching ambulance.

"Fuck it, we'll look for Ed WHILE we get rid of the evidence!" said Eddy, referencing to the full bags in Ed's room. "Let's get out of here and look for Ed AWAY from them!"

They proceeded to pick up the garbage bags and frantically run out the back door. After they were out, they argued over what to do next. "Okay, Sockhead, now what?

"Don't look at me! You're the one who wanted to get out of here!"

"Well, let's put them in a dumpster someplace!"

"Are you insane, Eddy?! That's the first place they'd look for these!" Edd replied. The medics would probably put two and two together and think that there was some illegal drug activity going on, and then proceed to search the place for any illegal substances. But they couldn't do anything unless they were found in their possession; and that's what they wanted desperately to do, is to hide all the evidence.

"Well, let's hide them in the woods!"

Edd sighed at this lack of planning. But Eddy was right; hiding the bags in the woods seemed like the best alternative, despite his concerns for the environment. The construction site was too far away and they'd have to cross the cul-de-sac they lived in to get there, drawing attention from everyone and destroying the whole purpose of their getaway.

"Fine." Edd sighed. "But as soon as they leave, we're getting rid of them properly, got it?"

"Alright, sounds good."

Edd looks around cautiously, ignoring the nearing sirens of the ambulance. "Alright, Eddy, the coast is clear…" After a few seconds, he whispered, "RUN!"

They both bolted across Edd's backyard and hopped the fence. Well, Edd did, at least; Eddy stayed behind for a second. "Eddy! What are you doing?! HURRY UP!" Edd whispered frantically. "Just hold up, Double D! We need this!" Eddy replied, tossing two spade shovels over the fence. After that, he hopped the fence with the bags in his hand. "You didn't really think we were going to 'dispose of this properly', did ya?"

Edd, realizing what Eddy was getting at, sighed furiously. "Alright, fine! Just hurry up so we can get out of here!"

From there, they were just two figures silhouetted against the rising red sun, hopping numerous fences in order to get to the woods.

"That was WAY too close, Eddy!"

They were in the middle of the woods, with the bags properly buried 4 feet under. Eddy almost dug into the grass to bury them; but Edd, being the intelligent one of the group, suggested that they find a patch of bare ground and bury them there to make the burial site less obvious to anyone who happened to walk by.

"There is no way in hell I'm EVER letting Ed bring his own stuff without ME seeing it!" shouted Eddy furiously, his gruff voice echoing throughout the forest. He then looks at Edd. "Do you think the ambulance is gone yet?"

Edd looked around him fearfully, wondering if anybody heard Eddy's screaming. In an attempt to change the subject and to protect their cover, Edd replied, "Ok, enough about that for now. Can we please just proceed to look for Ed?"

Quickly snapping to attention, Eddy replies, "Alright, but let's make it quick. God knows what he could be doing right now…" They set off in search of their best friend, hoping to find him somewhere in the woods.

Back at the cul-de-sac, everything was in an uproar because of the ambulance that came. Even Rolf, who spent most of his time working on his small farm, stopped working to see what was going on.

"Kevin!" he called to the person running past his house. "What is the meaning of this? Why is there an ambulance parked at noodle-for-brain Ed boy's house?"

Kevin, knowing that Rolf was from rural Germany and had trouble with English, took a few seconds to process what he said and replied, "I don't know, dude. He must've gotten into some serious shit. You coming with us?" He motioned to all the people in the neighborhood walking towards Ed's house. Rolf still had to split nearly two cords of wood. He never was keen about just dropping everything he was doing in the middle of a job to go someplace else. But, his curiosity took over.

"Alright, Rolf will join you and everyone else in finding out what is going on." Rolf said.

So he put his splitting maul down and joined all the people that were walking towards Ed's house and the ambulance that was there, wondering what was going on.

"You know how much trouble we're going to be in when Ed's parents get home, right?" said Edd as he and Eddy trudged through the deep forest looking for their friend. "They will find out about the ambulance sooner or later, and we'd better have a good cover story for all of this!"

Edd wasn't normally one to lie, but if there was one thing he hated more than that, it was getting thrown into jail for ten years. He had been to their parties before, and everyone would put two and two together and find out that he was just as responsible.

"Alright, relax, Double D. I'm thinking of one as we go along! But can we focus on finding Ed, first?"

In a twist of irony, Edd realized that he brought up the subject he tried to get off of earlier.

"We'd better, Eddy, because if he even so much as stumbles upon someone we know, they're going to find out everything that happened last night and all those other times."

Eddy and Edd both know the first place to look for Ed. They kept walking until they came up to the creek that ran through the forest, a favorite hangout for the three when they were young. To their dismay, Ed wasn't there. "Great." said Eddy. "Let's just keep looking someplace else." Eddy begins to trudge of through the woods and when he gets about four hundred feet in, he realized Edd was not there with him.

"Hey, Sockhead? Where are you?" He called out. "Double D?" He became a bit paranoid, because the Kanker sisters frequented this place as well. He looked all around him for his friend, but he couldn't find him anywhere. "Socked, don't do this to me." He realized after a minute that this was no joke, and that Edd was gone for real. He then put together a scenario in his mind that Edd was kidnapped. His eyes widened in fear and anger. "Fucking Goddamn Kankers… DOUBLE D!" He sped back to the river as quickly as he could, almost tripping on the way there. When he finally reached the open, he was relieved and angry to find Edd kneeling over the edge of the creek, apparently studying something. "Sockhead, where were you?! You freaking had me scared half to death!"

"Eddy, come here for a minute." Edd replied, ignoring Eddy's yelling, motioning Eddy to kneel down beside him as well.

"What is it now?"

"Tell me, Eddy, do these footprints look familiar to you?"

Eddy kneeled down beside Edd and observed and studied the prints his friend pointed out. The prints were rather large, with ridges running all the way down the print. He studied them for a minute, wondering what Edd was getting at.

"That's weird, these footprints look familiar."

"I know. That's why I had you come over here to help me find out if they belonged to Ed."

Eddy looked across the creek. This part was extremely shallow, so he could see how someone could cross it.

"Do you think these belong to Ed?"

"I don't know."

"Well, they sure as hell look his size, and we got nothing else to go on, so we might as well follow them." Eddy said in a rare moment of genius. Edd, who normally stayed away from walking in water, went along with the idea because of how shallow it was, and that finding Ed was the most important thing to do.

"Alright, Eddy, we might as well go…"

With that said, they crossed the creek and followed the footprints left in the mud. As they went further and further, the foliage in the woods began to get lighter and the sky, blue with blood red from the sunrise still staining the clouds, was beginning to get more conspicuous; and the rays of sunlight were getting larger and brighter as they shone through the trees. Eddy was trailing behind his friend. "Double D, where are we going, anyway? This area's starting to look familiar and kinda gives me the creeps…"

"I don't know, Eddy. In fact, I don't know half of what—" Edd's speech stopped in its tracks when he looked around to see where he and Eddy were. The entire open area was cast in orange-red from the sun, now higher than before. They were out of the woods, that was for sure, but it was where they were exactly that made him freeze up. They were standing at the gates to a place that was all too familiar to the trio of friends, a place where they made it a point to avoid at all costs, and was also the last place he ever wanted to be.

"Hey, Sockhead, what are you—" Eddy's sentence was cut short as he bumped into Edd. "Hey, does this place look familiar to—" Eddy stopped once again as he realized where he and Edd were standing, and around that same time, they both spotted Ed's green jacket, now tinted orange, laying on the ground, and looked in horror at the side of the gate that was open enough for a person to fit through.

"_Oh hell, no… Please God, don't let it be true…"_


End file.
